Kenneth
JandaPolitical Parties: A Cross-National SurveyNew York: The Free
Press, 1980: pp. 768-769BULGARIA: The Party System in 1950-1956 and
1957-19621

(Text
as published in 1980 citation above)

Bulgaria was allied with Germany in World
War I and sided with Germany again in World War II. Bulgaria
avoided declaring against the Soviet Union in the second
war, thus limiting its fight against the Allied Powers. In
1944, Bulgaria began armistice talks with the Western
Allies, but the Soviet Union suddenly declared war on
Bulgaria and quickly occupied the country. Meanwhile, a
Communist- dominated Fatherland Front in Bulgaria took over
the government. Aided by Soviet forces, the Communists
consolidated their power under the leadership of Georgi
Dimitrov, who had returned to Bulgaria after living in
Moscow during much of the war. Soviet influence on the
Bulgarian domestic scene was increased in 1949 with the
execution of the "native" Communist leader, Traicho Kostov,
accused of conspiring with the Yugoslav revisionists.

Dimitrov died in 1949, but he was succeeded by his
brother-in-law, Vulko Chervenkov, another Soviet returnee,
who promoted a series of Stalinist purges that lasted until
1953 and placed Bulgaria even more firmly in line with
Soviet policy. When Stalin died in 1953 and the posts of
party secretary and head of state became separated in the
Soviet Union, Bulgaria followed suit, with Chervenkov
relinquishing his party position to Todor Zhivkov.
Chervenkov's attempts to control the party were resented,
and--never Khruschev's favorite--Chervenkov began to lose
power as he lost support from Moscow.

Following Khrushchev's 1956 denunciation
of Stalin and his own emergence to prominence in the Soviet
Union, Zhivkov cast his lot with Khrushchev and began to
ease Chervenkov out of power entirely--a process that was
completed in 1962 at the 8th Congress of the Bulgarian
Communist Party. Chervenkov and Prime Minister Anton Yugov
were both purged from the leadership, and Zhivkov became
both first secretary of the party and prime minister.
Throughout our time period, the Communist Party was the main
instrument of government, but it operated ostensibly through
vestiges of the Fatherland Front. Coexisting with the
Communist Party in the Front is the Agrarian National Union,
which carries the message of the party to the peasantry.

Continuity
and Change since 1962

There has been
some change in the distribution of legislative seats between
the Bulgarian parties, but the essential pattern is one of
stability. Both of our original parties continued through
1978, and no new parties were formed.

612
National Agrarian Union. The Agrarian Union exists in
alliance with the Communist Party under the Fatherland
Front. With more than 3,000 local branches (Area Handbook
for Bulgaria, 1974, p. 163), it is more than a paper
organization and serves to link the Communist leadership
with rural interests.

Summary

Still closely aligned with the Soviet Union, Bulgaria has
experienced only modest changes in her external or internal
politics over the last 30 years. However, diplomatic and
economic contacts with the West have increase significantly,
and there has been some decentralization of administrative
authority within the country.

1. Our study of party politics in
Bulgaria is based on a file of 1,183 pages from 104
documents, all of which are in English including many in
translation from Bulgarian (see Table 1.3). The
bibliographic search and indexing of material for the
file was done by Judith Newsome Gillespie. Michael Monts
used the file to code the Bulgarian Communist Party on
the variables in the ICPP conceptual framework, and
Patricia Sweeney coded the Agrarian National Union.
William Welsh and Carl Beck were our consultants.